Re: Aesthetic Language Sense

----- Original Message -----
From: Boudewijn Rempt <bsarempt@...>
To: Multiple recipients of list CONLANG <CONLANG@...>
Sent: Wednesday, October 6, 1999 1:04 PM
Subject: Re: Aesthetic Language Sense


> On Tue, 5 Oct 1999, Ed Heil wrote:
> > Anyway, I started looking into Klingon and got tired of it for this
> > very reason: I got the sneaking suspicion that the words were randomly
> > generated, and that no matter how I pursued it I would not reach a
> > point where they "sounded right" for their concepts.
> >
> <...>
>
> > But I didn't get that out of Klingon.
> >
> > Does anyone feel the same way?  Or did anyone look into it and have a
> > very different experience of it than mine?
>
> Of course that might be right for a language for an alien people
> that has a very 'unreal, cardboardy' feel to them ;-). I think you're
> right, and it isn't just the orthography that's an eyesore - the
> words haven't got it.
I think a lot of Klingon words sound appropriate in some way for their
meanings. But what I don't like about Klingon words is how simple they are
phonologically, even for complex concepts such as "torpedo" (DuS IIRC). I
would think there would be more compounds out there. Also, I would like to
be able to find connections between similar words with similar meanings,
such as 'ejDo and 'ejyo which are given in the Klingon Dictionary, but I
suspect that there simply is no connection between most of the words to
find. I guess that's one reason I am started Dhak from a proto-lang: I can
make compounds and create words in regular ways but as the language changes
the connections can be obscured somewhat without being completely
obliterated.